UC Berkeley Center for Future Urban Transport: A Volvo Center of Excellence

Freight carriers strive to provide higher levels of transportation service with lower costs. However, the economic and environmental viability of cities are negatively affected by the present organization of urban goods distribution. Can these two competitive goals be harmonised to create efficient and environmentally friendly urban logistics systems? This paper presents several examples of “green logistics” schemes tried in a number of forward-looking cities around the world. The review highlights the basic qualitative ideas of these schemes and the results of field tests. Most of the ideas can be applied to other cities, but analysis is needed to figure out which combination of schemes is best for a particular location. This should be an item of some research priority.